Affinity Photo Circular Text

[Al Edwards]

Hey guys, I'm new to AP, is it possible to create circular text in Affinity Photo? I found a tutorial explaining how to do it on a path in Affinity Designer, but is it possible in Photo? Or do I have to convert each letter to curve and rotate it separately? Which seems a little... harsh.

[v_kyr]

It's the way you already assumed above, a circular path text function is only available in Designer/Publisher and not in Photo. But you can take over (include/place...) a template for those from Designer and reuse that in Photo then. - See here.

 

 

[Al Edwards]

Hey v_kyr, thanks for your quick reply.

OK, so basically, if I want to do things like this, I need AD? It's a shame because I can only really afford one of them, but I need render/photo editing, as well as texture editing/tiling and occasionally things like this.

[CLC]

Hi @Al Edwards.

I believe there is a macro set by @Paul Mudditt that allows you to use Text on Path in Photo as well, if that helps.

 

[v_kyr]

Well you can do it also the way you assumed above, namely convert each letter to curves and rotate it separately. But that's bad in cases you possibly want to often change text contents. Another way would be to use some external tool for generating plain SVG based circular text and reuse that then in Photo. - However, either way you always need workarounds in Photo for these circulat text things, especially in order to keep them still editable in some manner.

[Al Edwards]

3 minutes ago, CLC said:

Hi @Al Edwards.

I believe there is a macro set by @Paul Mudditt that allows you to use Text on Path in Photo as well, if that helps.

 

Hey CLC, thanks for your reply.

OK, this looks interesting, I'm completely green to Affinity so I'm not sure, but is a "macro set" like an Addon/plugin? 

[CLC]

7 minutes ago, Al Edwards said:

Hey CLC, thanks for your reply.

OK, this looks interesting, I'm completely green to Affinity so I'm not sure, but is a "macro set" like an Addon/plugin? 

Well, it's more like Actions set from Photoshop.
There is more info in Photo's help section, it's kinda broken into two sections, you record Macros in Macros Studio, but you "play" them from the Library Studio.
A bit confusing ux imo.
Feel free to check it out.

[v_kyr]

For macros see also these videos ...

Macros

• Macros

• Macros: Equations

• Macros: Layer Behaviour

• Batch Processing with Macros

 

[Al Edwards]

1 minute ago, v_kyr said:

Well you can do it also the way you assumed above, namely convert each letter to curves and rotate it separately. But that's bad in cases you possibly want to often change text contents. Another way would be to use some external tool for generating plain SVG based circular text and reuse that then in Photo. - However, either way you always need workarounds in Photo for these circulat text things, especially in order to keep them still editable in some manner.

To be honest, it's fairly rare I would need to do this, it just so happens that on this project in which I am working now, I need to do it twice 😐

Generally I do 3D modelling, texturing and rendering, so apart from the usual post production work, which I think AP will be great for, I need to be able to create, edit and tile textures, and also convert them into Bump, Disp etc maps. 

Would you say this is a job best suited for AP or AD?

One of the Moderators very kindly said he would try to change AP to AD for me if I wanted, as I only bought it a couple days ago. But honestly, I don't know which is better for me. Any opinions would be very warmly welcomed.

[Al Edwards]

Sorry for ridiculously large image 😄😶

[v_kyr]

What do you need to work mostly with, bitmaps/raster or vectors? APhoto is first of all a bitmap/raster image tool as it's name implies. ADesigner on the other side is primary vector based. - So it highly depends on what you have to work mostly with bitmaps or vectors?

[Alfred]

10 minutes ago, CLC said:

you record Macros in Macros Studio, but you "play" them from the Library Studio

Macros can also be played from the Macro panel. The point about the two Studio panels is that the Macro panel is for single macros but the Library panel is for collections of macros.

[v_kyr]

See also this thread for text/numbers/ticks on round scales and things like that.

[Al Edwards]

6 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

What do you need to work mostly with, bitmaps/raster or vectors? APhoto is first of all a bitmap/raster image tool as it's name implies. ADesigner on the other side is primary vector based. - So it highly depends on what you have to work mostly with bitmaps or vectors?

Honestly, I know the difference between them, but I have no idea which I'm using and have never considered it (I'm a bit ignorant in respect to technical things tbh it makes my head hurt). My main duty is 3D modelling so I haven't really had to go deep into these issues before, it's just recently I have been trying to focus on texturing, and I try to use procedural textures wherever possible.

I've been using GIMP up until now for things like this, but it's a fairly awful program to use if you don't use it every day, frankly I would find any work around I could to avoid it, though could create reasonable Maps. 

I'm always striving for photorealistic models, so really the textures have to be of as high quality. I also do a lot of close up renders, so I would assume vector would be better?

[v_kyr]

Well if you need that mainly for 3D modelling, it depends on what input file formats (bitmap or vector based) the 3D modeling tools you use (or have to use) work at all best with for exchange. So it depends on your workflow and what the tools in use need.

[Al Edwards]

3 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Well if you need that mainly for 3D modelling, it depends on what input file formats (bitmap or vector based) the 3D modeling tools you use (or have to use) work at all best with for exchange. So it depends on your workflow and what the tools in use need.

Ah OK, I'm using Blender Cycles. When I export them it's usually to .obj files, if that's what you mean?

 

Btw, I really appreciate your support, it's people like you that make up for all the terrible people on the internet 😀